"Having worked abroad, I decided to move back to start my own company and make a difference"

Next in our series of scientists who returned to India, after a stint abroad is scientist-turned-entrepreneur Dr.Chaitanya Saxena who started his own research based company Shantani Proteome, capitalizing on the valuable experience gained over the years .

I come from the breed of researchers turned entrepreneurs. Identifying a target for a small molecule drug from a bevy of probable ones has always been one of the central challenges in drug discovery. I along with other co-founders are trying to provide a technology that can aid in making the target screening process more accurate.

Originally, I have a chemistry background, having completed my masters from Devi Ahilya University. I later worked as a production chemist at Lupin Laboratories for a year. After that, a quest for higher education, which could help me to explore my interest in the biological aspect of drugs, led me to pursue a research program at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS).

The institute was a game changer for me as a person, because it is here that I first learnt what it means to do science. I learnt a lot from that lab. This was the point of time that I decided to continue doing research. Further hard work and interest in this direction helped me get to the Ohio State University for my PhD. I got a good publication for my PhD thesis, which then facilitated my job at Eli Lilly.

Having worked in Eli Lilly in the US after my PhD, I decided to return to India to start an innovative technology company in early 2010. Since then, I along with my team have developed a "Subcellular location specific target capturing" technology for isolating potential drug targets. Our studies have shown that the technology has the potential to significantly reduce the identification of false positives and provides upto 50-70 percent savings in time and cost during target validation.

We are now capitalizing on our previous experience of working with a large pharma company to develop a technology base that could aid companies in drug discovery. Our goal is to allow complete acceptance of the technology.